Am I Missing Something?

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

A group of archaeological students travel to the Mexican desert for a weekend of dirt racing in honour of their friend John Barnes' birthday. But the professor has an ulterior motive – along with some mercenaries, he plans to locate & loot a massive treasure of gold that was left by the Anasazi, an ancient people who lived in the area. But once he finally finds the treasure, he accidentally releases the treasure's guardians – an army of undead skeletons led by a feared conquistador who wanted to steal the treasure but died in the process. As the skeletons attack the students' camp, Barnes & his friends must find a way to defeat the hundreds of killer skeletons that are assaulting them.The killer skeleton film is a rare subgenre in the horror field. The most notable ones to use them were in a supplementary fashion – the old 1950s stop-motion fantasy films like Jason & the Argonauts had some awesome stop-motion skeleton warriors & more recently the Sam Raimi Evil Dead sequel ARMY OF DARKNESS, which was technically not really a horror film but had some brilliantly funny moments & a great battle scene with knights up against an army of skeletons. Since then, the idea of killer skeletons has been mostly dismissed… until now.Army of the Dead is a 2007 attempt to give the idea a whole feature airing. Of course, stop-motion is so passé so the producers used cheap CGI to animate a whole army of skeletons, which looks pretty good until you realise that the skeletons are just one model being cut-&-pasted several times to resemble a whole army. The scenes where the skeletons directly interact with the humans are shoddy & the CGI blood & explosions used are even poorer CGI creations.The story is a riff on the recent Pirates of the Caribbean films, most notably the first one – an ancient but cursed treasure with an army of undead guardians protecting it for eternity – but with that source franchise making a lot of money to the point that at time of writing this, a fifth instalment is being produced, this film's novelty value will be eroded significantly. The characters are reasonably well drawn – an advantage over some of the other horror films coming out of the independent sector as of late – and the acting is also quite good, but the film fails to generate much in the way of suspense & the skeleton attacks are quite hokey.

The premise of reanimated skeletons on the rampage is as imaginative as "Army of the Dead" ever gets.The characters are telling ghost stories at the campfire. Naturally, one recounts the film's backstory. The next day a greedy man tries to steal the treasure along with some mercenaries.Naturally, to establish the mercs are terrible people, their boss pushes the greedy archaeologist to promise more riches, both from the treasure and otherwise, then tries to murder him after reaching the gold anyways, apparently his previous antics didn't qualify as obviously evil.One of the expedition is rescued by the central characters, of which some exist solely to provide more deaths - literally, some people are only on screen in group scenes.If you intend on watching a film almost interchangeable with many other horror movies, try viewing this.

I don't know why Army of the Dead works; it just does. It doesn't do anything particularly well, and its story is filled with so many historic inaccuracies that it's almost laughable, but who cares. Army of the Dead is one of those things that horror fans spend weeks longing for, a good cheesy horror flick that doesn't take itself too seriously and still manages to deliver some laughs and entertainment… whether it means to or not.In the film, a group of ex-college students all go out on some sort of off-roding expedition as a birthday present to some dude… not my idea of a good time, but some people get a bone for that stuff. Turns out the good professor has an ulterior motive for dragging all of his ex-students out into the Mexican desert, miles away from civilization. He's got half a treasure map in his possession… a treasure map that will lead him to Anasazi gold in Mexico… despite the fact that none of the Anasazi ever lived in Mexico. Anyways, the genius professor meets up with a group of white dudes who have the other half of the map… and then they go into a cave full of Anasazi treasure… sadly, when they touch the gold they awaken an army of the dead. The army of the dead is led by the ghost of Vasco Da Gama for some reason… even though he never set foot in North America, and his creepy, skeleton ass leads a horde of Army of Darkness-style skeletons across the empty canyons and hills to take their revenge on the greedy intruders… which just happen to include the professor's unknowing graduates who are warming themselves next to a fire with bottles of tequila, lots of them. Will they survive the night or be shot to death with flaming arrows and ripped apart by swords? Joseph Conti does an alright job of directing and he appears to have figured out a way to work past an obviously measly budget… rent a bunch of cars and drive around the wilderness. Then have your actors camp out underneath the stars, get drunk, and have relationship problems. It's not the most exciting thing in the world, but Conti works with what he has very well. Within the confines of a small budget and some poor special effects, Conti manages to create a fairly interesting film with a serious tone and some moments of solid storytelling, which, though factually inaccurate in a laughable manner, still manages to keep the film from sinking into the realm of straight to DVD garbage.The acting in the film is typical low-budget garbage and no one really stands out as anything special. The characters walk around and deliver their lines as if acting is something new to them, but no one ever gets bad enough to ruin the film.The most compelling aspect of the film is its low-rent special effects. Normally I hate cheap CGI, but for some reason, it actually worked in this film. The special effects are very reminiscent of the skeleton work in Army of Darkness and there are quite a few of them. Sometimes there is some telling doubling and synchronization of the army of skeletons, but for the most part, when they are by themselves, they look pretty cool. The CGI gore even had a nice level of cheese factor as it sprayed nicely. It still looks fake as hell, but the kind of fake that seems to have some effort behind it.Army of the Dead isn't anything truly groundbreaking but it is a nice diversion from the piles and piles of truly horrible garbage that get foisted upon the horror-loving public. It does a few things well, and avoids doing anything truly terrible… besides not knowing that Vasco Da Gama never made it to North America.Final Synopsis: If you're Jonson' for some horror, Army of the Dead will do in a pinch. It's not the type of movie anyone is going to buy, but it is good for a few laughs. Give it a rent if you got nothing else better to do than watch the ghost of Vasco Da Gama cut down college kids.Points Lost: -1 for some skeleton doubling and synchronization in the CGI department, -1 for some bad acting, -1 for some filler scenes of cars driving, -1 for being laughably inaccurate in the history department Lesson Learned: Never follow anyone out into the desert. When sleeping with a scandalous slut in the vicinity, always look under the sleeping bag before you crawl into bed.Burning Question: How hard is to look up Vasco Da Gama and find out he never came to North America? That's almost unforgivably lazy.Army of the Dead 6/10

Okey... I've seen bad movies, this is beyond bad. Don't know if this count as a spoiler exactly, but marking it as one just to be sure. Apparently, skeletons don't die of shotgun blasts, or any shooting weapon for that matter, what kills are fire. Now, thats just the most stupid thing i've seen. Skeletons die after a few seconds of fire? LOL! Skeleton being pumped with led : Lives Skeleton on fire : Dies (well again) Oh and electricity kills them too, and swords... but not bullets.Oh seriously, the blood in this movie was by the far worst i have ever seen, that goes for all effects too. The lightning... well, the carton made lightnings in He-Man looked more realistic.Save your time, i don't think this is good even if your stoned beyond recognition.TOTAL CRAP!